Cowboys Rush On

Admit it, Cowboys fans, you were spooked when you heard the news. But if the team was worried that star quarterback Dak Prescott would have to sit this one out due to his strained calf, they certainly didn’t show it.

Behind a strong defensive effort and an offense that showed it could still move the ball, the Cowboys were rewarded with a last-second treat at the end of this Halloween night, a big 20-16 victory over the Minnesota Vikings.

With the injury to Prescott, backup Cooper Rush was pressed into his first career NFL start and he played the part of hero perfectly. Although pedestrian at times early in the game, he was there at the end, connecting with Amari Cooper for the winning touchdown pass with less than a minute remaining in the game.

After Greg Joseph put the Vikings up 16-13 with a 24-yard field goal with 2:51 left, the Cowboys drove 75 yards for the winning score.

The Cowboys (6-1) won their sixth straight game, and the Vikings (3-4) had their two-game winning streak come to an end.

“This was a tough loss tonight,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said. “We had a good crowd. It was loud.”

Prescott was injured when he threw the winning touchdown pass in Dallas’ previous game, a 35-29 overtime win Oct. 17 at New England. He warmed up before Sunday’s game but was made inactive 90 minutes before kickoff.

The game was televised nationally on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. And though NBC studio analyst Tony Dungy predicted earlier in the week that the game would be a “shootout,” it was mostly a defensive struggle. But Rush did come on strong at the end and finished 24 of 40 passing for 325 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

Zimmer said the Vikings had enough film on Rush. When asked how they did against him, he said, “Not good enough.”

The big surprise was Minnesota’s offense being unable to do much of anything against a hardly dominant Dallas defense. Kirk Cousins completed just 23 of 35 passes for 184 yards and a touchdown, and the Vikings were 1 of 13 on third-down conversions.

“Not a lot to say after a poor performance like that,” Cousins said. “We didn’t stay on the field long enough. Too many third and outs.”

The Vikings opened the game with a 75-yard touchdown drive that finished with Cousins’ 20-yard TD pass to Adam Thielen for a 7-0 lead. But they didn’t manage another touchdown the rest of the game, settling for three Joseph field goals.

The Vikings led 10-3 at halftime. The Cowboys tied the score 10-10 when Rush hit Cedrick Wilson for a 73-yard touchdown pass with 14:07 left in the third quarter.

The Vikings took a 13-10 lead on a 40-yard field goal by Joseph with 6:31 left in the third quarter. But the Cowboys came right back to tie the score 13-13 on Greg Zuerlein’s 39-yard field goal with four seconds left in the quarter.

“First thing you’ve got to do after a loss like that is look yourself in the mirror,” Thielen said. “Everybody’s got to do that.”

After Joseph’s field goal put the Vikings up 16-13 with 2:51 left, Dallas drove for the winning score. The Vikings failed to slow down the Cowboys even though they faced third-and-16 at the Minnesota 24. It became third-and-11 after the Vikings inadvertently called two straight timeouts and were penalized five yards.